On Friday lunchtime I got a phone call from Charlie saying that she was lost… she was at the beach and needed directions to town. In Salcombe there are so many different beaches it was absolutely impossible to know where she was, but sooner or later thanks to the trusty Devon road signs (there’s no signal for satnavs down here) Charlie’s mini pulled into Whitestrand car park… she had arrived! We immediately said our long awaited hellos and then, in true Parrott style, headed to the Harbour House Hotel for afternoon tea.

Despite it being a bit chilly, it was a beautifully clear day and so the views that we had while overlooking the estuary from the hotel terrace were beautiful. It was soon time to head back to the house as that evening Ewan and I were presenting a Jack Wills prize at the yact club, something we needed to look smart for… This was easier said than done when we were both houseless, with all of our belongings crammed into the back of the landy. Luckily, however, we have nice enough friends who volunteered to have us to stay, so we could temporarily use their house and we got ready for our big presentation. At the yacht club, everyone was so lovely and knew all about the Jack Wills race and so had reserved us seats at the front so that when the time came we could jump up and hand out our prize. Before that though, we had drinks outside on the yacht club terrace with all the commodores and chairmen of the club, we felt so important! The actual presentation itself was very sweet with families and young children winning all sorts of prizes and soon the Jack Wills prize was announced and we jumped up to hand out our gift. As it was Ewan’s birthday, after we’d done our bit, we headed down to the Bar and Grill for some drinks, dinner and lots of deserts.

On Saturday, thankfully, the weather was absolutely beautiful and so after a quick breakfast at home and completing the errands that needed to be sorted, we headed down to the beach on the water taxi for a very needed relax and sunbathe under the bright blue sky. We managed to spend basically all day at the beach until finally it was time to move into our new house and so we got our belongings and our new house keys and moved into our last house of the summer. The evening was filled with yummy pesto pasta and a film for Charlie and I.

On Sunday Grandma and Grandpa were arriving into Salcombe and so we got up, went into town for a quick brunch at the wardroom and then headed over to the Thurlstone hotel to see them. The hotel was absolutely stunning with a quaint rooftop terrace where we met for morning coffee before having a little explore of the hotel and town and then heading into the hotel restaurant for a delicious Sunday roast, something I’ve been missing so much since I got here. The weather was once again perfect and so after lunch we napped on the lawns comfy arm chairs and then went over to the pool for a swim and a sunbathe. When the afternoon arrived and it was time to go back to Salcombe, we had a phone call from the Rock Seasonnaires, to say that they’d arrived in Salcombe and so we met them for dinner and drinks at the Bar and Grill before calling it a night and turning in for a very needed sleep.

On Monday the weather was absolutely stunning and annoyingly we had a lot to do, so we got up extra early, drove around town like headless chickens sorting out the arrangements for our ‘fabulously british evening’ that we had planned that night, such as sorting out the table and chair rental, pre paying for 25 portions of fish and chips, etc, then soon it was time to head out into the sunshine. Our friend Dan had his boat out on the water and so we spent the rest of the day bobbing about in the ocean, relaxing on the water and even having a little picnic. Then it was time for our extravagant evening that we had planned. We got dressed up and headed down to South Milton beach, where our newly rented tables and chairs were waiting for us. We set up a banquet style table on the long beach, with table clothes, cutlery, champagne flutes, pimms jugs and even special party gifts on each seat. Soon everyone had arrived, all dressed in shirts and dresses and ready to mingle, chat, enjoy the sunset and play some fabulously British games, such as croquet and boules. When the fish and chips arrived everyone was absolutely starving and so we all sat down at the banquet table to eat as the sunset. After dinner we attempted letting off lanterns as we thought it would be a cute way to end the night however about 9 of the ten lanterns we had went up in flames, it was absolutely hilarious and as the sunset finally one lantern flew off into the sky.

After brunch with Charlie and the grandparents on Tuesday morning, it was time to say goodbye. It was such a lovely few days and I just wish she could have stayed longer!

On Saturday the plan was to spend the day basking in the beautiful sunshine at the beach however unfortunately the sun never managed to make it out and so we spent the day snuggled up at the Harbour Hotel wrapped up in blankets, drinking hot chocolate, watching the boats go by. Then it was time to go back to the house, get ready for drinks and head out for the evening.

When Sunday arose we were all in need of a lie in which is exactly what we had before heading out in Salcombe for the first day of regatta week. We first went to Island Street to explore the fabulously British street party, with music, bbqs, face painting and lots of little stalls. Later that day I met up with a friend from uni who is down in Salcombe for a couple of weeks with her family. It was so lovely to see a familiar face from home and we managed to have a big girlie catch up in the sun at The Ferry pub over looking the harbour.

Our staff dinner was scheduled for Sunday evening and due to the lovely weather we decided to have a bbq on South Milton beach. It was so nice and a perfect opportunity for us to get content for work due to the fact that because it was a Jack Wills store dinner, everyone was wearing Jack Wills! We played rounders and made human pyramids before cooking sausages and burgers while watching the sunset behind the sea. When it was time to leave I was searching high and low and everywhere and couldn’t for the life of me find my car keys! Bearing in mind I gave a lot of people a lift to the bbq because the landrover has so many seats. It was an absolute disaster given that it was no pitch black darkness and we were all searching the beach using our torches for light! Obviously we had no luck finding the key and so piled into other cars in the hope that we would find it if we came back to search in daylight the next day. It was such a great evening having a beach bbq with all my friends, and such a rubbish end to it!

On Monday we woke up super early an drove back to the beach to have a day light search but once again with no luck, which was unbelievably annoying and so disappointing. A very necessary gym session was needed after that to run off my excess stress before heading to the Ferry to sit in the sunshine with a very needed drink and complete some more content for work.

Tuesday was such a big day for everyone in Salcombe as Ocean Valour was arriving finally to dry land. They are a team of two 24 year olds, trying to raise money for the brain cancer trust appeal as one of their dads had recently passed away from the illness. They rowed all the way accross the Atlantic from New York to Salcombe and Tuesday was their arrival date. The whole of Salcombe and many more people crowded over to the White Strand mooring area. There were people watching from balconies, restaurants, the yact club, from sea, everywhere all waiting for the arrival! There were also TV and film crews as well as four Royal Navy Rib boats, crammed with their family and friends waiting to sail out to greet them. The boys arrived with Tom Rainey, the main fundraiser, rowing in and he looked absolutely exhausted each pull clearly a struggle, while Laurence was standing up, hands in the air while the whole crowd cheered them in. The reunion on the pontoon was fenomenal, with them hugging and greeting family friends who weren’t sure if they would ever see them again after they set off from New York three months ago, but here they were, ragged, long haired, very tanned and clearly very tired. With boxes of fish and chips passed over to them as well as champagne, they made their way over to the Kings Arms pub to give some speeches…. We also had the opportunity of interviewing them!

So after a fabulously muddy weekend at Somersault, by Sunday evening it was time to pack in the glamping and the wellies and exchange them for flip flops and beds back in Salcombe.It was too far for the Abersoch two to travel all the way home and so they piled into the landrover too and came back to the south coast with us. It was so nice to finally be driven, as I happily handed over the landy keys to Will and basked in my one journey being chauffeured.

Back in Salcombe we all arrived in plenty of time for hot showers and an evening at the Bar and Grill, before heading back to get a good nights sleep and say our goodbyes over brunch the next morning.

The next few days we were given a lot of leeway with the ‘content’ that we provided head office, as it was definitely time to push our opening party for the last few days, finalise arrangements, order props and accessories online and plan the even to the final T as well as getting on with our lives, seeing friends and arranging spontaneous evenings.

One of those evenings actually occurred on Monday night! The whole point of our job is to act like ambassadors for the Jack Wills brand and life an aspirational lifestyle, and to show it off. Ewan absolutely loves putting movies together and so Caitlin and I thought we could make a ‘Seasonnaire Dinner’ for aspirational pink and blue photos (and also so that we could have a cute sunset dinner with yummy food).

We stocked up in Tesco on all the food we thought would look aesthetically pleasing in photos, as well as getting pink and blue flowers, candles, table clothes and other little props. When we were back at the house the filming starting, with food prep footage, setting the table footage, getting ready footage and finally eating footage! (As well as filming, this part actually meant we got to eat the delicious food and it was so yummy!)

Tuesday meant more party prep as well as spending the evening at our friends house to celebrate his birthday with a well deserved BIG Chinese take away and a few drinks around a firepit… (such a Salcombe lifestyle!)

As Wednesday was our last full day to push the party, we got all the props organized and spent the morning prepping and promoting, as well as sorting out the business side of things and sending over invoices and party plans to head office. The evening was a perfect time to relax and get a good night’s sleep so Caitlin and I put on a film and snoozed before having the earliest night.

Opening party day was finally here and it was time to head to the beaches for one last hand out of the invites, but every person that we gave them to already knew and was planning on coming already! So we then headed to the Bar and Grill to set up for our party! They’d sectioned off a part of the terrace for the beginning of the night and we set up the comfy seats with Jack Wills bunting and banners all over the bar. There were two huge crates painted white that we spray-painted a huge J and W on them, a big beer pong table and then it was time to fill the ceiling with balloons! It took absolutely ages as every time we pinned a section of the net up and filled it with balloons, another section popped off and fell and all the balloons would drop to the floor! It was so frustrating! Eventually we found a thinner lighter net and it worked a treat, (after all that stress) and the balloons were finally held in the sky. When it was time for the party I was actually quite stressed… what if no one showed up or what if it was a bit of a flop like the pervious year’s parties had been!? I just wasn’t sure. At first lots of families arrived, obviously after the free stash and so it felt a bit like we were hosting a kids party, giving them cool Jack Wills photos and letting them have their photos taken infront of the big banner. But thankfully, eventually they soon cleared out as the night got later, and the party filled up, and the DJ started. Everyone was dancing, getting drinks, playing beer pong, there was about 200 people and when the night came to an end at midnight, no one wanted it to stop! Such a success and we were so happy and utterly exhausted.

On Friday it was moving day and so we had to be up and out of the house by 10am, despite our big night the night before, luckily our house was super tidy and packing was fairly easy… we packing up our stuff was, packing the landrover will all the things we’d accumulated was harder than we thought however eventually we were moved out and homeless, sitting in the bar and grill to use their wifi for work. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging and relaxing on the beach, our friend has a boat and so drove us all out to Sunny Cove, a beautiful little beach only accessible by boat and we lay there until the tide came up so far that there was no more room. It was then time to move into our new house!

At first our house seemed quite bizarre… it seemed as if it was literally in the middle of no where, as it was quite a dive up the steepest of roads to Lower Batson to find it! When we arrived, we found that the house was literally the only one in the area that high up and after collecting the key from the garage, we entered into a dark house filled with creepy looking portraits and creaking windows. We kept seeing new portraits through different windows and screaming because we thought they were people and we were horrified and obviously freaked ourselves out completely! Safe to say it took me a long time to get to sleep that night, but soon enough it was morning and we discovered the absolutely stunning views that we had at our windows! As the house is so high up, the fields outside the windows stretch for miles winding down to the bright blue sky filled with boats. It’s stunning and we definitely feel a lot better about the house now… we’ve even named the portraits!

On Friday morning, exactly a week after we arrived in Salcombe, it was time to pack a small bag and make our way to the complete opposite side of Devon to meet the other seasonnaires for Somersault Festival!

The drive was a long two hours since the rain was absolutely miserable and pouring it down, making it very hard to see, especially in such an old and wobbly landcover. All the seasonnaires met up in a very old and even more wobbly inn, which was absolutely deserted except for the most old of all old man who apparently was the bar tender. It was a funny experience as we sat inside dry from the rain in such a bizarre place but it was so nice to see the others and we had a lot of catching up to do while we waited for our manager and the roaming seasonnaires who were stuck in traffic.

Finally when everyone had arrived, introductions were made and we drove in convoy (two land rovers, a mini and a fiat) all the way to the festival.

Our boutique camping was actually so nice, such a pleasant surprise when we arrived. The girls had a much smaller cuter tent with big inflatable beds and bright red duvets, while the guys had a massive teepee type tent with their mattresses around the edge and space to sit and chill in the middle. Our manager however, had his own morrocan themed teepee with candles and blankets…

We all made our way to the boys tent where we had a few drinks and caught up properly, while setting up the cameras and go pros before heading into the festival to enjoy our first night. It was SO muddy and stupidly the only footwear I had brought with me were my nice white converse! I felt like such an idiot squelching into the mud and hopping around the paths trying to find the drier spots! However I definitely felt better than the people who had just bought flip-flops… there was no chance for them and so shoes were left completely off and they had to brave bare feet!

The festival itself it quite small and is family based and so there was lots going on both musically and not. As we walked in we passed a massive fair ground, a well being section with massage tents and organic facial decks and then as we got further we passed dressing up stalls where you can buy tails, this made sense of all the children running around with dinosaur tails sticking out of the tops of their trousers, head masks and much more. When we arrived at the main stage we got some drinks and food and found a good spot to enjoy the first night’s music.
We listened to Laura Marling and The Staves before heading in for our first night camping!
To say I woke up feeling refreshed after a good night’s sleep would be a complete and utter lie, however our first night’s sleep was not bad at all, if a little bit cold and we were woken up by the boys at a ridiculous hour (9am), having already gone to the shops to buy us all Wellies, to start our day of getting content for Jack Wills… work basically but not.

We got dressed, some even faced the freezing showers (not me), queued for bacon butties and once we were up and energised we split into groups to get some cool festival photos. My small group started off by heading to these amazing decorated caravans where we posed and did some Jack Wills outfit of the day shots. We then got the flags out and tried to be as creative as possible before getting some more candid photos around the camp and then taking the landrover out for a spin around the festival, getting the big Jack Wills car advertisement working its magic. We did at one point, however, managed to drive up a no-entry road (we thought we’d be able to get some good photos up there) to realise we had driven into a farm. We only realised this however once we were all posing on top of the truck and then saw a head of cows running towards us! We had to climb down quick and in a panic the passenger door wouldn’t open and everyone was screaming that we were just going to have to be abandoned as the landrover was going to drive away but luckily we piled into the boot just in time to escape the cows and drive to safety.

It was then time to relax in the gorgeous sunshine and have a bit of a sunbathe, while we realised that the lead singer of Bombay Bicycle club was camping next to us! The boys had some fan photos and then it was time for us to hear into the festival. We found a sunny spot over looking the main stage where we made camp and relaxed in the sunshine listening to the chilled vibes of Rae Morris and Imelda May. As the sun started to go in and the main stage filled up, we knew exactly what the atmosphere was building up for, the main act of the night, Bombay Bicycle Club! We quickly grabbed some food and found ourselves a spot near the front just in time before the area filled up and we looked behind us to see crowds and crowds of people that weren’t there before! Then Bombay Bicycle club arrived, the crowd went wild and it was an amazing experience. Their music was perfect for the event and had everyone singing along, even to the songs they didn’t particularly know as the lyrics are catchy and everyone was having too much fun to care. During their last song, the sky filled with streamers and confetti and then Saturday night’s main stage music was over and it was time to head to the secret forest for the DJ sets and the forest party! I actually don’t know how we managed to do it but somehow we were some of the first people to get into the forest party and so didn’t queue at all, however then got a phone call from half of our group to say they were stuck in an hour queue! We danced for a fair bit, squelching in the muddy forest and enjoying ourselves until we were literally exhausted and it was time to head to our little tent.

That night the rain came in and it absolutely poured it down. It was torrential rain and thunder and with he tent walls so close to my head it felt literally as if someone was hammering on the top of our tent. It also didn’t help that I kept needing the loo so would have to run through the downpour! I’m actually not sure if I even properly slept that night but when I woke up the swamp that we were now a part of was absolutely ridiculous. The water came up level to the edge of our tent, I’m surprised it hadn’t seeped in and the mud underneath that water was basically liquid, walking around (thank god for the wellies) my feet were completely submersed and the muddy water flicked up, splashing all over us.

Moodily we all piled into the boys teepee to hide out from the ongoing rain and made a plan, we would get in the land rovers and drive to a nice pub for a big Sunday lunch! Everyone’s moods perked up and so we made our way to the nearest pub… which was full, great. We then got a phone call from our manager to say he’s arranged for us to interview one of the guys from the BBC introducing stage, and he wanted me to do the interview! It was a silver lining and it was an exciting thing to do on such a gloomy day. We found a cute little hut made out of twigs, right in the middle of the wellbeing camp and just as we were about to start the interview, the sun came out! I asked him everything from aspirations with his music to what he would put on a Jack Wills Summer Bucket List and at the end of the interview he even played us our own acoustic set so that we could here his soulful music first hand.

It was such a good way to end our Somersault experience, and head office were so happy with us because of it! But it was definitely time to leave as we got back and our tents had started leaking mud, so we packed up, said goodbye to boutique camping and headed for Salcombe and our little upside down house.